Tenant Remedies When a Landlord Misuses a Social Security Number

Attorney Answer

Using your Social Security number without your consent can be a crime and can be an unfair trade practice — but Connecticut's identity-theft statutes are enforced by prosecutors, not by you, so your own claim for money runs through the unfair trade practices act.

On the criminal side, Conn. Gen. Stat. § 53a-129a(a) provides that "a person commits identity theft when such person knowingly uses personal identifying information of another person to obtain or attempt to obtain money, credit, goods, services, property or medical information without the consent of such other person." Subsection (b) defines personal identifying information to expressly include a Social Security number. The offense is graded by the value obtained and the victim's age: first degree under Conn. Gen. Stat. § 53a-129b requires value exceeding $10,000, or exceeding $5,000 where the victim is sixty or older, with second and third degree at Conn. Gen. Stat. §§ 53a-129c and 53a-129d. Two things follow. The statute requires that the number be used to obtain or attempt to obtain something of value — merely holding your number, or being careless with it, is not identity theft. And these are criminal statutes; they create no private civil cause of action you can file yourself.

On the civil side there are two statutes aimed squarely at Social Security numbers. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 42-470(b) provides that no person shall publicly post or publicly display an individual's Social Security number, print it on a card required to access products or services, require an individual to transmit it over an unsecured or unencrypted internet connection, or require its use to access a website without additional authentication. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 42-471(a) requires any person in possession of another person's personal information — expressly including a Social Security number — to safeguard the data, computer files and documents from misuse by third parties, and to destroy, erase or render them unreadable before disposal. Subsection (b) requires anyone who collects Social Security numbers in the course of business to create and publish a privacy protection policy. A landlord who collects your number on a rental application is squarely inside that duty. Violations carry civil penalties and are treated as an unfair trade practice, which is what gives you a route to court: Conn. Gen. Stat. § 42-110b prohibits unfair or deceptive acts or practices in trade or commerce, and Conn. Gen. Stat. § 42-110g lets a person who suffers an ascertainable loss recover actual damages, with punitive damages and attorney's fees in the court's discretion.

What none of this can tell you is whether it happened, because "personal use" covers very different things — opening a credit account, putting a utility or a lease in your name, using your number on a tax filing, or simply passing it to someone else. Which one it is decides which statute matters.

What you can do

1. Pull all three credit reports free at annualcreditreport.com and read every account and every inquiry. That is where misuse shows up first. 2. Place a credit freeze at Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. It is free, it takes minutes, and it is the single most protective step available to you. 3. Write down what you actually saw or were told, with dates. If you cannot yet say how you know, that is the first thing to pin down. 4. Report at identitytheft.gov, which generates an FTC identity theft report, and file a police report. Ask for the report number. 5. Send your landlord a short written demand, by certified mail: stop using your number, tell you every place it was used, and destroy or securely dispose of any copy. Keep a copy — this is also what creates the record for a § 42-471 claim. 6. File a complaint with the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection and the Attorney General, citing the Social Security number restrictions in Conn. Gen. Stat. §§ 42-470 and 42-471. 7. If you find an actual loss — a fraudulent account, a hit to your credit, money you had to spend — that ascertainable loss is what supports a claim under Conn. Gen. Stat. § 42-110g.